Vismayam Movie Review

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VISMAYAM MOVIE REVIEW

Vismayam which is a trilingual with different titles in Telugu, Tamil and Malayalam attempt to spread love, happiness, peace and stress on the importance of human relationships. In that attempt, in my opinion the film has succeeded partially. The film could have been much better had they trimmed some unwanted and dull moments particularly in the first half.

One world and four stories. Thats the tag line of the film. Justifying this tag line, Vismayam tells four different stories that have four different characters as the protagonists. We have Sai Ram who is an Asst Manager in a super market, Gayathri, a home maker, Abhiram an engineering student and a school going girl in the mix of things in the story.

Though it is an anthology, the story is told in a mixed way without waiting for one of them to end and then tries to find a connecting link in the overall storyline. I wasn’t much impressed with the first half that has many silly and unwanted scenes that affected the overall flow. But should say the way the first half ended and the second half was better. The ending was a smooth and feel good one compensating for the lag and weakness of the pre-intermission portion.

Ita a dubbed film but the close up shots of Mohanlal and scenes involving Joy Mathew and P.Balachandran have been shot in Malayalam. On the dubbing part, the portions of all the main actors were done well but the supporting actors dubbing was annoying at times.

Though the film is released with no hype surrounding it but cannot ignore the fact that we are seeing Mohanlal for the first time on big screen this year as this is his first release of 2016. A simple and homely character has been given the apt treatment with his usual flavour and mannerisms. The character goes through a different and difficult times at a particular juncture in the film and the actor rose up expressing the tension that he was passing through in an effective manner.

Gouthami, Viswanth and the little girl who are also part of the four stories have played their part quite well. Urvashi, Nasser, Joy Mathew and P.Balachandran are the familiar actors for me among the supporting actors without much significance in the overall story.

I liked the way the nonlinear presentation of the four stories was done by director Chandrasekhar Yeleti. But felt a slight disconnection with the story when it came back live on screen to the previous story as the four stories are told at a time with no endpoint in the middle.

Though I realised in the end that such a narrative was a necessity in this case and as per the demands of the story, it was little difficult to come to grip with the interwoven narration of four stories at a time. Not that such a treatment is something happening for the first time but those unwanted scenes acted as a culprit affecting the flow of the film.

Some feel good and touching scenes also needs a special mention. The moments betwen the young girl and the little boy from the slums is one such icing on the cake giving a sweet and cute feel to the film.

Cinematography was good. Editing could have taken care of those uninteresting portion in a better way. Music and background score is apt for the situations that the film passes through. Dialogues being dubbed into Malayalam had as usual its share of trouble but compared to some irritating dubbed films we have seen, Vismayam is far better and way ahead of such movies.

Being a film brought from another language, I am not sure how the audience would react to and accept Vismayam that had very limited publicity with zero hype even though it is the first film of 2016 for Mohanlal. Going by the number of people present in the theatre for watching the first day first show (there were hardly twenty five in attendance) the film needs a good word of mouth to get more audience to the theatre. I enjoyed the film in parts especially the latter half and more particularly the final half an hour and how they ultimately wrapped up the story which was a convincing end for it.